Offense comes to life in destruction of D.C. United
CHESTER » The directive from Jim Curtin this week was clear, the circumstances getting less and less tenable by the week.
The Philadelphia Union’s offense needed to show a pulse. At home, against the second-worst team in the Eastern Conference — if ever there was a time for the offense tied for 20th in MLS to break out, this was it.
Within 45 minutes, Curtin had his response.
The Union blistered five goals in the first half, tying a franchise record, then set a franchise mark in a ragdolling of D.C. United, 7-0.
Alejandro Bedoya and Julian Carranza supplied firsthalf braces. Mikael Uhre finished his brace in the second half, then Carranza completed the fifth hat trick in team history. It breaks a three-way tie of six-goal games and is the club’s largest margin of victory (previously five).
“I think you saw a confident group on the field,” Curtin said. ‘We didn’t train great this week, but we had some discussions and we had some talks and I think some guys ironed some things out in the final third. We weren’t perfect by any stretch, but I think the first half was as close to us at our best.”
So comprehensive was the early bludgeoning that the Union scored five times despite missing their first-half best chance based on expected goals (Nathan Harriel airmailing a shot with a wide-open net to pass into) and had a clear-cut penalty waved away when Daniel Gazdag was hauled down at 4-0.
Even so, the Union produced a higher xG figure in the first half (2.9) than their last three games combined. It ended a run of two straight games without scoring and was the 14th time in 19 games the Union have led this season, second-most in MLS.
It also forced D.C. United coach Chad Ashton into two subs after just 40 minutes. By halftime, he’d abandoned the 3-4-2-1, replacing three defenders in the perforated backline.
Early goals haven’t been a problem. Piling on has been. So the sirens weren’t blaring when Bedoya fired home in the ninth minute, Jose Martinez diming a sterling ball from inside the midfield circle to near the penalty spot where Bedoya took it in stride and fired home.
A response came in the 22nd when Carranza started what would be the first in three minutes. The first was the best. Jack Elliott nodded down a Kai Wagner corner kick. With no one minding Carranza at the edge of the six, he whirled and fired a bicycle kick past a stupefied Rafael Romo. In the 25th, a quick interchange between Gazdag and Leon Flach down the left led to Flach slipping in Carranza to nudge it home.
That was the first time the Union have scored more than two goals in a match this season and the first time they’ve done so in 25 games.
It didn’t stop there. With D.C. defending in theory only, Bedoya flashed to the near post on a free kick to nod home a Wagner free kick in the 37th. His first two-goal game in MLS ties his career high of five league goals in any of his 16 professional seasons (he scored five in Sweden in 2013 with Helsingborgs and five for Nantes in France in 2013-14).
Uhre scored in the 45th, after Gazdag dizzied up a defender. Harriel created havoc in the box in the 59th, and a skewed clearance fell to Uhre to bury from a tight angle.
Carranza missed his first two chances at a hat trick, misfiring on a penalty in the 69th when Chris Odoi-Atsem handled his goal-bound shot. Romo dove to his right and kicked it away with his trailing legs. But Carranza got it in the 72nd, Wagner floating a sumptuous cross that was not dealt with. It deflected to Carranza, who shaped a left footed shot into the far corner for first Union hat trick since 2020 (Sergio Santos). They’re also just the fifth MLS team to have three players score multiple goals in the same game; the last was also the Union, Oct. 22, 2017.